Safer Inside: A Community Demonstration

by Jack Rice

It would be easy to miss, with Prop C in full swing, with political candidates talking about their “solutions to the biggest challenges facing the city today”, with successive mayors intensifying the criminalizing sweeps of our friends and family on the streets… But San Francisco is making radical steps – leading the country, in fact – with the first ever demonstration model of a safe injection site in the United States.

“Safer Inside: A Community Demonstration” took place in the last week of August,

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BLACK HISTORY MONTH OR THANKING THE SLAVES FOR MAKING AMERICA GREAT?

by Bilal Mafundi Ali

For many people, especially Black people, the month of February signifies the annual celebration of Black History Month/African-American Heritage Month.  February is designated as a time to recognize African American achievements and contributions to America. One notable consequence is the hero worship of a handful of prominent figures.  What’s more, this celebration of Black achievement particularly tends to be sanitized, and this selective representation is often at the expense of erasing a rich legacy of individuals,

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Violent Threats Posted on Tents at Mission Camp

by Quiver Watts

On Friday afternoon a handful of Mission District residents experiencing homelessness found shockingly violent threats taped to their tents. The typed notices referred to the campers as “JUNKIE MOTHER F***ERS” and warned that they would be the targets of vicious attacks if they were still present in the area after sunset that night.

The sign itself contained shockingly violent language, threatening “IF YOU ARE STILL HERE AFTER DARK TONIGHT, the hunters will become the hunted.

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The U.N. Investigates Poverty and Human Rights in San Francisco

by Quiver Watts

Dec. 15, 2017

by T.J.Johnston

The topic of homelessness is often addressed as an economic, health, or safety issue. But a special investigator from the United Nations came to San Francisco on December 6 to hear from community members with a take not often heard from officials in the U.S.: the human rights of homeless people.

 

Philip Alston, UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights,

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Are Homeless People “Service Resistant”?

by Mike Lee

I just love the language used to describe homeless people: Drunk, crazy, helpless, ad nauseum. It’s also shrouded in industry-specific terms like “experiencing substance abuse issues.”

Alphabet soup of acronyms that only a handful of insiders know. My all-time favorite though is “service resistant.” Google the term. There is no definition for it except when applied to the homeless. Common sense leads one to conclude that there is a whole army who resist services.

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San Francisco’s “High Disgust Sensitivity” To Homelessness

by TJ Johnston

Raise your hands if you’re in favor of housing homeless people and programs that make it possible.

Now, raise your hands if you support laws imposing bans on sleeping outside or panhandling.

Chances are, in this scenario, you’d see the same set of hands raised favoring both approaches to homelessness. According to a pair of political scientists, that’s not unusual.

Scott Clifford of the University of Houston and Spencer Piston of Boston University studied this phenomenon of dueling impulses by commissioning a public opinion poll.

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Littering Fine Could Increase to $1000 in Dolores Park

by Maia Hibbett

On any sunny Saturday, hundreds of people fill the Mission’s Dolores Park with their friends, pets, music—and their trash. Current anti-littering laws do little to combat this latter phenomenon, as on most days, police officers in Dolores Park can be seen standing at the top of the hill, surveying the park for violent or egregious misconduct but doing nothing about the wrappers, cigarettes, bags, and other refuse being left by the park’s attendees. While the officers watch along the perimeters,

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New York Activists Fight to Halt Quality of Life Citations to Protect Undocumented Immigrants

by Quiver Watts

New York City has seen a lot of action around the intersection of immigrant status and quality of life crimes. San Francisco should look at following their lead.

Mayor Bill DeBlasio, like our Mayor Lee, has made strong statements shield and stand with immigrants. Like San Francisco, New York is a sanctuary city . However, as many have noted, the real way to create a sanctuary is to halt to crackdowns on minor offenses—like lodging in public spaces—that make immigrants the subject of unnecessary arrests and can lead to deportations.

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No Housing for Immigrants in the Sanctuary City

by Gianni Jones

In the Bay Area, accessing housing is a challenge many Americans face. While rents are rapidly rising, wages have stagnated; someone who works one, two, or even three minimum wage jobs in the Bay Area just can’t afford to live here anymore. Now imagine being an undocumented immigrant attempting to access limited, expensive housing and provide for your family. Often times, it can be a debilitating and stressful experience. The current implications of immigration policies in America displace and traumatize immigrants and refugees as well as foster hysteria and xenophobia amongst non-immigrants.

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New California State Legislation Honors the Dignity of Transgender Prisoners

by Coral Feigin and Sasha Buchert

Despite the fact that transgender and gender non-conforming people have recently become more visible in the media and popular culture, the realities for street-based, poor, black and brown and disabled trans women remain the same. Trans people continue to face discrimination from traditional housing, employment and healthcare forcing many trans people into alternative street economies like sex work, drug sales and whatever other work people can find. As a result of being pushed out of these traditional systems,

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